Category Archives: False Claims

By Robert Rhoad on June 20, 2014 Posted in False ClaimsOn Tuesday, July 1st from 1-2 pm, Bob Rhoad will join Bates White as moderator on a panel entitled “False Claims Act: Seeking Clarity on Damages and Penalties.” The discussion will center around the more prominent issues where the measurement of FCA damages and penalties remains a matter of close scrutiny, including: The landscape of… Continue Reading

By Robert Rhoad and Rob Sneckenberg on March 26, 2014 Posted in False ClaimsA prominent FCA practitioner observed twenty years ago that while FCA settlements were common, it was impossible to find a standard settlement agreement, if there was such a thing, or a DOJ policy on point.¹ His words ring true today. While the FCA has become the Government’s principal anti-fraud weapon, little has been written about the… Continue Reading

By Andy Liu and Olivia Lynch on March 14, 2014 Posted in False ClaimsIn “Ten FCA Decisions From 2013 That Government Contractors Need To Know,” a feature comment published in The Government Contractor, C&M attorneys Andy Liu, Jonathan Cone, and Olivia Lynch count down 10 FCA decisions from last year that they predict will have the most significant legal and practical impact on government contractors. Read how the… Continue Reading

By Jason C. Lynch and Andy Liu on March 13, 2014 Posted in False ClaimsThe government has reiterated in no uncertain terms its proposed standard for particularity under the FCA: “a qui tam complaint satisfie[s] Rule 9(b) if it contains detailed allegations supporting a plausible inference that false claims were submitted to the government, even if the complaint does not identify specific requests for payment.” Brief for United States… Continue Reading

By Jason C. Lynch and Robert Rhoad on August 26, 2013 Posted in False ClaimsIn March, we published an article entitled “New Questions Regarding The Jurisdictionality Of The FCA’s Public Disclosure Bar: Potential Hurdles And Increased Costs In Defending Against Parasitic Qui Tam Actions,” The Government Contractor, Vol. 55, No. 12 (Mar. 27, 2013). We explored whether, given the 2010 amendments to the civil False Claims Act (FCA) under… Continue Reading

By Jason C. Lynch on April 24, 2013 Posted in False ClaimsCrowell & Moring recently achieved two substantial victories for its client, Academi Training Center LLC (“ACADEMI”) in a qui tam False Claims Act case in the Eastern District of Virginia . The qui tam relators accused ACADEMI of billing for personnel who did not serve in the labor categories in which they were billed and… Continue Reading

By Mana Elihu Lombardo on April 23, 2013 Posted in False ClaimsOn May 15-16, 2013, Crowell & Moring is hosting its annual Ounce of Prevention Seminar (OOPS). This year’s program, entitled Weathering the Rough Seas of Regulation, will once again provide the government contract community with a comprehensive review of the latest developments in federal contracting. In the morning session on May 16, attorneys Andy Liu, Robert… Continue Reading

By Jason C. Lynch on March 26, 2013 Posted in False ClaimsA False Claims Act (“FCA”) complaint filed by John McLain (not to be confused with the main character of the Die Hard series sharing the same name) was recently dismissed for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) and failure to plead fraud with particularity under Rule 9(b). See United… Continue Reading

By Megan Weisgerber on March 25, 2013 Posted in False ClaimsLast week, the Fourth Circuit issued a decision that exposes government contractors to False Claims Act lawsuits based on allegations which were previously considered untimely and which had already been the subject of prior qui tam action. In U.S. ex rel. Carter v. Halliburton Co. (Mar. 18, 2013), the panel held that the Wartime Suspension… Continue Reading

By Jason C. Lynch on February 22, 2013 Posted in False ClaimsComplaints alleging violations of the False Claims Act (“FCA”) must satisfy Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b), which requires the government or qui tam relator to “state with particularity the circumstances constituting fraud.” In order to ferret out fishing expeditions, many courts have held that Rule 9(b) requires plaintiffs to allege the who, what, when,… Continue Reading

By Crowell & Moring on February 11, 2013 Posted in False ClaimsIn a series of posts (Part 1), I’m examining the Department of Justice’s annual Summary of False Claims Act cases and recoveries to see what these statistics might reveal about FCA enforcement trends. In the first post, we looked at the rising number of new FCA matters that were filed last year. But who gets… Continue Reading

By Crowell & Moring on February 1, 2013 Posted in False Claims,GSA ScheduleLess than a week before most people departed for December holidays, the Department of Justice posted to its website its annual summary of False Claims Act matters and recoveries. Among other data points, the FY 2012 summary reports the number of new FCA “matters” that were filed or opened, both by qui tam relators and… Continue Reading

By Rob Sneckenberg on November 19, 2012 Posted in False ClaimsA recent case from the District of Massachusetts illustrates how the False Claims Act may be stretched to cover companies that do not even submit claims to the government. In U.S. ex rel. Ge v. Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., Nos. 10-11043-FDS, 11-10343-FDS (D. Mass. Nov. 1, 2012), the relator alleged that Takeda Pharmaceuticals violated the FCA… Continue Reading

By Crowell & Moring on November 9, 2012 Posted in False ClaimsFCA Amendments Congress enacted the Fraud Enforcement And Recovery Act (FERA) of 2009 to broaden the language of the False Claims Act to impose liability on anyone who knowingly uses “a false record or statement material to a false or fraudulent claim.” 31 U.S.C. § 3729(a)(2). It made this change to legislatively overrule the Supreme… Continue Reading

By Robert Rhoad on October 24, 2012 Posted in False ClaimsSeveral weeks ago, we wrote about the case of United States ex rel. Baker v. Community Health Sys., Inc, in which a magistrate judge recommended that the government be sanctioned for failing to preserve key evidence in a False Claims Act case. That recommendation was recently adopted in its entirety over the government’s objections by the… Continue Reading

By Robert Rhoad on October 5, 2012 Posted in False ClaimsA relator filing a qui tam complaint under the False Claims Act must file it under seal, see 31 U.S.C. 3739(b)(2), giving the government an opportunity to investigate the allegations. While the initial sealing period lasts 60 days, the government routinely receives extensions, which means that FCA cases often stay under seal for months, if… Continue Reading

By Crowell & Moring on August 6, 2012 Posted in False ClaimsThe Fifth Circuit held that federal government employees can bring whistleblower suits under the False Claims Act (FCA), even when it is their job to investigate fraud. The whistleblowers in the case, Little v. Shell Exploration & Production Co., alleged that Shell defrauded the federal government of millions of dollars in royalties by taking improper… Continue Reading

By Robert Rhoad and Dalal Hasan on June 6, 2012 Posted in False ClaimsOn Thursday, June 14 at 1 p.m. (Eastern time), Crowell & Moring government contracts and false claims act attorneys Bob Rhoad and Dalal Hasan will be conducting a webinar entitled “False Claims Act: Key Provisions and Current Trends in Compliance and Enforcement” on behalf of L2 Federal Resources. During this 90-minute webinar, Bob and Dalal will provide… Continue Reading

By Crowell & Moring on March 8, 2012 Posted in False ClaimsU.S. Attorney General Eric Holder recently issued a DOJ-wide memorandum urging federal government attorneys to coordinate when conducting parallel civil, criminal, regulatory and administrative proceedings. Holder wrote that parallel criminal and civil investigations would deter future offenses and maintain program integrity, while also acting to “secure the full range of the government’s remedies (including incarceration,… Continue Reading

By Dalal Hasan on February 27, 2012 Posted in False ClaimsLast week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in U.S. ex rel. Bunk v. Birkart Globistics GmbH & Co., et al. (a qui tam case in which the government did not intervene) declined to impose statutory penalties on the jury’s finding of 9,136 false claims (invoices submitted by defendants under a… Continue Reading

By Crowell & Moring on December 20, 2011 Posted in False ClaimsThe U.S. Department of Justice reported this week that it recovered $5.6 billion in criminal and civil fraud payments in fiscal year 2011, including more than $3 billion under the civil False Claims Act. The fraud recoveries set a one-year record for DOJ; the FCA recoveries capped a record-setting three-year period during which DOJ recovered… Continue Reading

By J. Catherine Kunz on October 10, 2011 Posted in False Claims,GSA ScheduleGSA has now topped the $128 million settlement it reached in 2009 with NetApp – then the largest settlement reached in an FCA action against a GSA Schedule contractor – by settling with Oracle Corporation and Oracle America Inc. this past week in the amount of $199.5 million plus interest. The settlement resolves an FCA action… Continue Reading

By Mana Elihu Lombardo on September 15, 2011 Posted in False ClaimsThe Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), 5 U.S.C. §552, is intended to uphold the principles of transparency and open government, so that citizens can assess government accountability and actions. Since its enactment in 1966, FOIA has also been used by companies to obtain information about their competitors’ prices and contract performance, as well as by… Continue Reading

By J. Catherine Kunz on August 26, 2011 Posted in False Claims,GSA ScheduleTwo years ago, GSA reached a $128 million settlement with Network Appliance, now known as NetApp Inc., based on a whistleblower False Claims Act (“FCA”) suit that alleged the company had failed to comply with the Price Reduction Clause of the contract. The settlement amount was, and continues to be, the largest Schedule contract fraud settlement… Continue Reading

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